This has bothered me for a while.
For some reason, VTES cards say redundant stuff like "Bleed at +2 bleed." and "Hunt at +2 hunt." Why? Seems unnecessarilyy redundant. I think this can be simplified and save on card space.
Behold my brand new innovative patented design:
Intimidation.
Bleed (+1).
Bleed (+2).
We can also have keywords like:
Restricted. (A minion can only have one of [cardname] or [cardtype].)
Trivial. (If this is the first trivial action this minion has performed this turn, this minion untaps if successful.)
Leather Jacket
Restricted. Trivial.
The bearer of Leather Jacket can burn it to prevent all damage from the opposing minion's strike.
Let's modernize VTES please. Discuss.
P.S. Titles are also keywords.
Gangrel. Noddist. Camarilla. Once each turn, LivesByProxy may burn 1 blood to lose Protean until the end of the turn and gain your choice of superior Auspex , Obfuscate , or Potence for the current action.
It's a trade-off between space and complexity.
Too many keywords and the game becomes horribly complex.
About bleed, how would you write "Bleed with +1 bleed and +1 stealth"?
Prince of Paris, France
Ratings Coordinator, Rules Director
> LivesByProxy wrote:
> Let's modernize VTES please. Discuss.
>
saving text space on cards only really benefits cards that are arguably too wordy for their effects. *squints at Calling the Beast* The idea has merit, though the implementation of such may be trickier than you think.
> For some reason, VTES cards say redundant stuff like "Bleed at +2 bleed." and "Hunt at +2 hunt."
>
but these aren't redundant? Bleed and Hunt are types of Actions and also (confusingly) values that can be modified. As Ankha brings up, Stealth is the other big thing during an action that can be modified. so this format describes the type of action being taken, with any additional modifiers. To me this is really more of an argument that the value these actions look at for their effects could possibly have their names changed to prevent confusion.
> self wrote:
> To me this is really more of an argument that the value these actions look at for their effects could possibly have their names changed to prevent confusion.
>
Confusion which is instantly re-introduced when you remember that old cards aren't being removed from the face of the earth. Every single time people suggest changing terminology to be less confusing, you have to factor in that you've just made it a ton more confusing for anyone learning the game - they need to learn old terminology, and new terminology.
This isn't Hearthstone. Changing terminology doesn't instantly rewrite every card in existence.
> jamesatzephyr wrote:
>
> > self wrote:
> > To me this is really more of an argument that the value these actions look at for their effects could possibly have their names changed to prevent confusion.
> >
> Confusion which is instantly re-introduced when you remember that old cards aren't being removed from the face of the earth. Every single time people suggest changing terminology to be less confusing, you have to factor in that you've just made it a ton more confusing for anyone learning the game - they need to learn old terminology, and new terminology.
>
> This isn't Hearthstone. Changing terminology doesn't instantly rewrite every card in existence.
>
I agree with the idea that one really needs to take into account the history of terminology in VTES when eliminating redundancy, saving space, and reducing complexity. If decades' worth of cards refer to both bleed actions and bleed amounts, then the best thing to do is simply ensure the rulebook makes it clear there are different meanings of the word "bleed" so that it's understood that this word has two meanings.
That said, there are much, much better ways to clarify things than updating the rulebook, such as making new terminology to replace the "redundant" terminology. But this would require starting the game from scratch and eliminating those decades' worth of cards with the redundant terminology. Unless this happens, bleed is just going to have to have two meanings and hunt is going to have to have two meanings.
"Hunt" recently being clarified to have a second meaning (+hunt) for consistency with +bleed is a good thing, because it made the usage of "hunt" consistent with usage of "bleed" in VTES in a minimally painless way. Consistency is the best we can aim for with the current game.
yet we still see questions about how a Bleed action can be successful, yet the bleed be unsuccessful, which is also confusing. Cards have been retconned throughout the history of the game: Immortal Grapple was given the Grapple keyword. Most recently Wake was added to several cards to describe that effect.
it's really a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation: leave confusing things in the game, or clarify them going forward but have things be confusing when compared to previous printings of the cards. This tells me that availability of cards is super important. And with the overwhelming bulk of the cardset difficult to obtain for new players as it currently is, I agree that it'd probably be unwise to replace the terminology. If we had a steady supply of reprints and new cards available to allow new players to buy the new cards, that might possibly make the situation different enough to merit it.
When I was getting into V:tes with a new group of friends back in 2002, we all bought the newer cards, despite knowing that we could buy jyhad collections for cheap. We bought the new cards because we knew they had updated card text and didn't want to confuse ourselves with the old cards. Anecdotes aren't data, though, so other people's mileage may vary.
@LivesByProxy
>
> Restricted. (A minion can only have one of [cardname] or [cardtype].
>
There are 62 cards that use the phrase "A minion can..." or "A minion may..." in their text. A fair portion of them are effectively "A minion may/can have only one this card attached" conditions. But some of them have other restrictions like Havens or Vehicles, or a restriction as to how many per turn/combat/round of combat the card can be played. It's also interesting to note that most combat cards that attach themselves to a minion, are put on the opposing minion rather than the one playing the card.
so the problem with adding a 'restricted' keyword would be figuring out where to use it such that it would be most effective. if we only look at cards that attach themselves to minions AND are 1 per minion specific to that card (as opposed to Havens and Vehicles), we're left with approximately 28 cards. I'm not sure that would be enough to justify adding that kind of terminology.
> self wrote:
> yet we still see questions about how a Bleed action can be successful, yet the bleed be unsuccessful, which is also confusing.
>
Provide better explanations in a more accessible way? Number of cards rewritten: zero.
> self wrote:
> Cards have been retconned throughout the history of the game: Immortal Grapple was given the Grapple keyword. Most recently Wake was added to several cards to describe that effect.
>
Well, if you're going to compare apples with oranges.
Apparently, you find "Bleed at +1 bleed" confusing, correct? So this needs to be rewritten to be "Bleed at +1 potency" or whatever keyword you would invent.
This is completely unlike adding "Grapple" to Immortal Grapple. The word "Grapple" wasn't added to Immortal Grapple to make the card less confusing. The card functions in the same way.
> self wrote:
> it's really a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation:
>
It really isn't. Setting up false dichotomies like that is irrelevant.
> self wrote:
> When I was getting into V:tes with a new group of friends back in 2002, we all bought the newer cards, despite knowing that we could buy jyhad collections for cheap. We bought the new cards because we knew they had updated card text and didn't want to confuse ourselves with the old cards. Anecdotes aren't data, though, so other people's mileage may vary.
>
Not only does other people's mileage vary, your anecdote is irrelevant. You can buy new cards. If you ever play with any other player outside your group, such as attending a tournament, they may be using old cards. So even if you've decided to remove all the confusing terminology so that you start a bleed escapade(*) at +1 potency(**) against your prey which then turns out to be fruitful(***), the player with the old cards isn't using them. So you have to learn all the old terminology, which would now have been removed from the official rules.
(*) Can't use the word action, because it's overloaded with master phase action and discard phase action, so it would be confusing to use the same word.
(**) Bleed.
(***) Can't use 'successful' because that's used by referendums, and it would be confusing to use the same word.
> Ankha wrote:
> It's a trade-off between space and complexity.
> Too many keywords and the game becomes horribly complex.
>
> About bleed, how would you write "Bleed with +1 bleed and +1 stealth"?
>
You're right about having too many keywords, and I'm not suggesting VEKN do what MTG does and introduce 3-4 new 'keywords' every year only to never use them again. I'm trying to put forward (and I would like to see) a few keywords that are useful and ubiquitous.
I was inspired in part by FFGs L5R and ANR card games. L5R uses the word 'Restricted' much as I've used it here. VEKN/BC created the 'Limited' and 'Wake' keywords which were steps in the right direction. My only disappointment is that Limited is specific to bleed modifiers - I wonder if it could be applicable to cards like Carrion Crows or Form of Mist, both cards that say, 'You can only play one of these each action.' It seems to me like 'Limited' could mean 'You can only play one Limited card each action.' and it would cover a lot more cards without creating too many problems.
About your question though, we would follow the formatting that's already been established: the amount of stealth an action has precedes the action description.
"Bleed with +1 bleed and +1 stealth" is currently written as:
+1 stealth action. Bleed at +1 bleed.
which becomes:
"+1 stealth action. Bleed (+1)."
of course, if it were really up to me, I'd do it this way:
" Bleed (+1) at +1 stealth."
because I think the icons are best used as an indicator for timing windows and not as card types. My opinion on this is strongly influenced by the way FFG handles things.
In the case of a card like Bonding, the actual text is fine as is: "+1 bleed and +1 stealth" doesn't break anything.
________
@SelfBiased, James, & 2RR: I don't think having an action (bleed) with a corresponding value (also bleed in this case) is confusing. What it indicates to me is that certain actions have corresponding values that are only useful during specific timing windows.
I see what SelfBiased is saying though. A referendum is a type of action, but votes are a numerical value associated with that. But I've never liked the word referendum (it is too long) and the same result could be achieved with:
" Vote (+2). If successful..." i.e. "Call a vote. This acting vampire gets +2 votes.'
and if you think this is too far outside the realm of possibility, realize that
' Bleed at +1 bleed." is really saying "Make a bleed. This acting vampire gets +1 bleed."
Gangrel. Noddist. Camarilla. Once each turn, LivesByProxy may burn 1 blood to lose Protean until the end of the turn and gain your choice of superior Auspex , Obfuscate , or Potence for the current action.
> LivesByProxy wrote:
> " Vote (+2). If successful..." i.e. "Call a vote. This acting vampire gets +2 votes.'
>
Wait. you started the post wishing to eliminate redundant terms. Now your suggesting introducing more redundant terms (ie, changing "political action" to "vote action")?
While your suggestion would appear to make things consistent (ie, "vote" would have 2 meanings the same way "bleed" or "hunt" would), the added consistency there may actually be harmful. The difference is a bleed action resolves and can involve either a successful or unsuccessful bleed. Political actions don't function the same way: the political action has to be successful, then the referendum happens, during which polling (casting votes and ballots) happens, the result of which can be a successful or unsuccessful referendum. It's okay for Political Actions to use unique games terms and inconsistent mechanics because they resolve in a unique way that differs from bleed and hunt actions.
> TwoRazorReign wrote:
>
> > LivesByProxy wrote:
> > " Vote (+2). If successful..." i.e. "Call a vote. This acting vampire gets +2 votes.'
> >
> Wait. you started the post wishing to eliminate redundant terms. Now your suggesting introducing more redundant terms (ie, changing "political action" to "vote action")?
>
The purpose of eliminating redundant terms as I called them was to save on card space and have cleaner looking cards. I still read and say: "Bleed (+1)" as "Bleed with +1 bleed." The former just saves space though. Granted, saying "Vote with +1 vote" sounds as silly as "Hunt with +1 hunt".
But for example, if KRC said: " Vote (+1). If successful, allocate four points among two or more Methuselahs. Each Methuselah burns 1 pool for each point assigned to them." It would factually be less card space than: "Political Card - Worth 1 Vote. Called by any vampire at +1 stealth. Allocate four points blah blah blah." which is what KRC used to say, until someone thought the cards could be cleaned up without increasing the mental burden or complexity, which I'd say they were successful in doing.
You do have a point about the consistency possibly being harmful since political actions function differently than other actions.
IDK, all this is just suggestions.
Gangrel. Noddist. Camarilla. Once each turn, LivesByProxy may burn 1 blood to lose Protean until the end of the turn and gain your choice of superior Auspex , Obfuscate , or Potence for the current action.
> LivesByProxy wrote:
> VEKN/BC created the 'Limited' and 'Wake' keywords which were steps in the right direction.
>
Wake is a keyword, Limited is not.
> LivesByProxy wrote:
> But for example, if KRC said: " Vote (+1). If successful, allocate four points among two or more Methuselahs. Each Methuselah burns 1 pool for each point assigned to them." It would factually be less card space than: "Political Card - Worth 1 Vote. Called by any vampire at +1 stealth. Allocate four points blah blah blah." which is what KRC used to say, until someone thought the cards could be cleaned up without increasing the mental burden or complexity, which I'd say they were successful in doing.
>
It's strange to phrase it like "Vote (+1)" since all political actions would be at +1. Also, the extra vote granted by the political card is not granted to the minion calling the referendum, and can be used during other referendums. So the extrapolation from "Bleed (+1)" to "Vote (+1)" is not a good one.
Prince of Paris, France
Ratings Coordinator, Rules Director
> Ankha wrote:
>
> > LivesByProxy wrote:
> > VEKN/BC created the 'Limited' and 'Wake' keywords which were steps in the right direction.
> >
> Wake is a keyword, Limited is not.
>
To avoid confusion as above, you should define keywords in the rulebook.
Smoking craters tell no tales.
—Tex talks Battletech
> Ankha wrote:
> It's strange to phrase it like "Vote (+1)" since all political actions would be at +1. Also, the extra vote granted by the political card is not granted to the minion calling the referendum, and can be used during other referendums. So the extrapolation from "Bleed (+1)" to "Vote (+1)" is not a good one.
>
Fair enough.
> Wake is a keyword, Limited is not.
>
Why is Limited not a keyword? What is BC's/VEKN's definition of a keyword? Limited would be a keyword in every other CCG.
Gangrel. Noddist. Camarilla. Once each turn, LivesByProxy may burn 1 blood to lose Protean until the end of the turn and gain your choice of superior Auspex , Obfuscate , or Potence for the current action.
"Limited" is text simply restricting how many of a card can be played by the player. "Wake" is referring to a game mechanic. You would say "this vampire wakes," but not "this bleed is limited."
It is super confusing to have so many things going with the different kinds of terms being introduced, but hopefully the rulebook will eventually be updated explaining the different terms and how they are used and what they mean.
> TwoRazorReign wrote:
> "Limited" is text simply restricting how many of a card can be played by the player. "Wake" is referring to a game mechanic. You would say "this vampire wakes," but not "this bleed is limited."
>
With your example, Limited is still a keyword - text restricting how many of a card can be played by the players is still a game mechanic. A keyword is any specific word appearing on a card that condenses rules-text (reducing the need to print the same line of text over and over, along with a bunch of other benefits.)
* Limited was a keyword introduced to replace "You cannot play another action modifier to increase this bleed amount."
* Wake was a keyword introduced to replace "This vampire may block and play reaction cards as though untapped for the rest of the action."
* Tap/Untap itself is a arguably a keyword for "Turn this card 90 degrees to indicate that it has been used."
Its for these reasons that I include titles like Prince as keywords. Each Prince of Wherever is a keyword with the reminder text: "This vampire gets +2 votes in referendums. Only one vampire can have this City title at any given time." or something to that effect.
Mark Rosewater: "A keyword is a word or phrase that is used to substitute for a longer grouping of text. Whenever you see that keyword used it can be substituted one for one every time with the longer text."
Matt Newman & Nate French: "A keyword is a card ability which conveys specific rules to its card. Each keyword has its own rules which can be found in the keyword's own section of the glossary."
I hope to hear Ankha's response. Mark Rosewater seems to think that keywords reduce perceived complexity - seeing "Haste" on an MTG card is a lot less intimidating and mentally taxing than "This creature can attack and tap as soon as it enters the battlefield." And makes for cleaner and simpler looking cards.
Gangrel. Noddist. Camarilla. Once each turn, LivesByProxy may burn 1 blood to lose Protean until the end of the turn and gain your choice of superior Auspex , Obfuscate , or Potence for the current action.
> LivesByProxy wrote:
> * Limited was a keyword introduced to replace "You cannot play another action modifier to increase this bleed amount."
>
No. That part about increasing bleed amounts has been added to the rulebook. "Limited" is not a keyword because it's a reminder text you can remove without changing the behavior of the card.
> LivesByProxy wrote:
> * Wake was a keyword introduced to replace "This vampire may block and play reaction cards as though untapped for the rest of the action."
>
Yes, and it's in the rulebook. That's why the whole sentence is now left as a reminder text, but could be removed without changing the behavior of the card.
> LivesByProxy wrote:
> Mark Rosewater: "A keyword is a word or phrase that is used to substitute for a longer grouping of text. Whenever you see that keyword used it can be substituted one for one every time with the longer text."
>
> Matt Newman & Nate French: "A keyword is a card ability which conveys specific rules to its card. Each keyword has its own rules which can be found in the keyword's own section of the glossary."
>
Both could apply, but since "limited" is not replacing any text, it's not a keyword.
It is very important to understand that with the revised card text, text between parentheses is always totally optional and can be removed without altering the card. It is a strong indication that such a text cannot be a keyword.
Prince of Paris, France
Ratings Coordinator, Rules Director
Livesbyyproxy: as Akha has described, “limited” is functioning as the parenthetical reminder text portion following a keyword rather than a keyword itself.
VTES never used the term keyword until very, very recently. I think this is unfortunate, because there are many one-word descriptions in VTES that look like keywords but are not. Introducing one-word parenthetical reminder text that also looks like a keyword but actually is not complicates matters further, as now there is a third type of one-word signifier (the three types being “keyword” (wake, unique), “reminder text” (limited), and “card type” (grapple, ammo, location, weapon, etc.)
> TwoRazorReign wrote:
> VTES never used the term keyword until very, very recently.
>
What/who are you calling "VTES" in that sentence?
Keywords are not mentioned in the rulebook, and the fact that "unique" is called a keyword or not bears no consequence.
(Unique is a "trait" by the way, term that appears in both the rulebook and on some cards, but that is currently only defined by a ruling, which is not a good thing).
Prince of Paris, France
Ratings Coordinator, Rules Director
You just called wake a keyword, so I guess I’m referring to you. Haha! Anyway, I agree that trait needs to be defined in the rulebook. And I think using keyword in VTES is not opitmal because people tend to have a predetermined definition of what keyword means (hence I interpret a negative consequence of using it)
***Edit***
Wake has officially been referred to as a "keyword." See below excerpt from the anthology set announcement. Again, this is unfortunate for the reasons I stated previously (VTES already has a lot of one-word descriptors that are not keywords but can be confused as such owing to people's predetermined definition of what a keyword is and ascribing this definition to any one-word special term that appears on a given card). Also, the keyword wake appears in the same glossary next to the trait unique, leading one to believe they function the same exact way.
I should emphasize that all issues (as I interpret them) can be ameliorated once all special terms are categorized and defined in the rulebook (ie, what a trait is, what a keyword is, what reminder text/word is, what card descriptors like grapple and weapon are, etc).
"Wake
Many reaction cards allow vampires to "play reaction cards and attempt to block even though locked until the current action is concluded."
These cards have a special place in the game as they are the only cards that can be played in the "as a card is played" window without that explicit wording (in order to play reaction cards that can be played legitimately in that window). These cards have always been referred to as "wake" cards by players. By adding the "wake" keyword, the effect will be easier to reference and to learn for new players (in order to mark the difference with a real "unlock" effect for instance). As a reminder, the description of the "wake" effect is left between parenthesis on cards such as Eyes of Argus."
> TwoRazorReign wrote:
> You just called wake a keyword, so I guess I’m referring to you. Haha!
>
But as I said, it's not very relevant. You could call it a technical term, a game term, whatever. "Wake" is of the same nature as "bleed" or "hunt". "Limited" is not.
Prince of Paris, France
Ratings Coordinator, Rules Director
Okay. I think the distinctions are very relevant, but I I've harped on this point enough and this thread may be going off the rails a bit, so I'll stop. I appreciate the replies!
> jamesatzephyr wrote:
> Provide better explanations in a more accessible way? Number of cards rewritten: zero.
>
oh totally. we're in complete agreement there.
the +bleed thing is, in the grand scheme of things that are confusing about the game, really really small. I don't think changing the terminology up would make people quit the game or keep new people out, and learning "oh hey, they changed the word for that. okay" might take all of four seconds to explain to someone. It's something that clearly is important to you, and not important to me; this isn't a hill I'm willing to die on.
> Ankha wrote:
> But as I said, it's not very relevant. You could call it a technical term, a game term, whatever. "Wake" is of the same nature as "bleed" or "hunt". "Limited" is not.
>
I get what you're saying, but it effectively functions as one due to it's scope. It's not like there's a bunch of cards that are exceptions to this rule, or that we're really hurting for space in the text box on those cards. You're the actual person who gets to define these things, so... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
As SelfBiased says, I'm not really trying to die on this hill but...
My 'predetermined definition of keywords' as 2RR phrases it is based on the precedent set by MTG since the very beginning, and during the entire time that VTES was in torpor 2010-2018(?) FFG was putting out new card games (LCGs) that were pioneering in their own right.
You (Ankha) say Limited is not a keyword because it functions as reminder text... except that if I were to ask 'What does limited mean?' as any new player would, I would have to be told what it means, making it functionally useless as reminder-text because it would require reminder-text. And MaRo reminds us that any word that has or could be substituted for reminder-text is a keyword.
I would also question the benefit of including a rule like "A minion cannot use more than one action modifier card to increase a bleed during a bleed action." within the Bleed section of the rules itself (making it a property / aspect of the bleed action?) instead of just having it be a keyword (and thus in a keyword glossary.) Having it embedded within another section of the rules ends up being more rules minutiae IMO. Having some bleed action modifiers explicitly state that they do not count against this limit is just shifting the text around, which we can still see on Amaranth:
Command of the Beast (pre-Limited)
+1 bleed; you cannot play another action modifier to increase this bleed amount.
+1 bleed
Command of the Beast (post-Limited)
+1 bleed; (Limited.)
+1 bleed; this bleed does not count against the limit.
What was gained? And what would be lost if Limited were actually a keyword? You say that the text in parenthesis could be removed without effecting the card, but IMO having things be keywords makes for cleaner looking cards, easier rulings, and a better rule book.
Furthermore, you state that Unique isn't a keyword but a trait. But Unique could have reminder-text (rules) after it, and like MaRo says, if a word could be replaced with the same reminder-text (rules) each and every time, then it is a keyword. Also, FFG defines traits as:
"Most cards have one or more traits listed at the top of the text box and printed in bold italics. Traits have no inherent effect on the game. Instead, some card abilities reference cards that possess specific traits."
Now, I'm aware that you and others before you considered things like Scare, Infernal, and Slave to be traits, but I would argue they're actually keywords because they have specific rules-text. Scare is a keyword that means: "When a Methuselah moves a scarce vampire from her uncontrolled region to her ready region during her influence phase, she must burn 3 pool for every other vampire of the same clan already in play." and if there was room on the card all of that text could / would appear as reminder-text.
Now things like Camarilla and Sabbat would be traits because there is no inherent rules-text tied to those terms. The same goes for Aim and Grapple and Frenzy, and Weapon and Electronic, etc. MTG would call them sub-types but I think traits are a better term.
The point of all of this is that VTES desperately needs to be modernized if you guys want to appeal to anyone outside of the VTES / WW fanbase. That's why I've referenced MTG and FFGs LCGs - both games that VTES could learn a lot from.
Gangrel. Noddist. Camarilla. Once each turn, LivesByProxy may burn 1 blood to lose Protean until the end of the turn and gain your choice of superior Auspex , Obfuscate , or Potence for the current action.
> TwoRazorReign wrote:
> Wake has officially been referred to as a "keyword." See below excerpt from the anthology set announcement.
>
Sure, but it has no meaning rule-wise. I could have called it a "special term". We don't need currently a grammar of all VTES words ("Is 'bleed' a keyword?", "What is the nature of 'during' in 'during X do Y'?")
> LivesByProxy wrote:
> You (Ankha) say Limited is not a keyword because it functions as reminder text... except that if I were to ask 'What does limited mean?' as any new player would, I would have to be told what it means, making it functionally useless as reminder-text because it would require reminder-text. And MaRo reminds us that any word that has or could be substituted for reminder-text is a keyword.
>
"(Limited)" can be viewed as "(See rulebook about bleed modifiers)" here (and "(See rulebook about additional strikes)" for additional strikes). Just like "" on actions, it's just a hint.
> LivesByProxy wrote:
> I would also question the benefit of including a rule like "A minion cannot use more than one action modifier card to increase a bleed during a bleed action." within the Bleed section of the rules itself (making it a property / aspect of the bleed action?) instead of just having it be a keyword (and thus in a keyword glossary.)
>
It is included within the Bleed section, which is logical.
> LivesByProxy wrote:
> Having some bleed action modifiers explicitly state that they do not count against this limit is just shifting the text around
>
Yes, but it is an exception (and they are very few), that is why there is an extra text for exceptions, rather than the other way round.
> LivesByProxy wrote:
> Furthermore, you state that Unique isn't a keyword but a trait.
>
I never said that. I said that Unique is a trait, and that if someone wants to call it "keyword" or whatever, it doesn't matter, because "keyword" has no special meaning in VTES.
Prince of Paris, France
Ratings Coordinator, Rules Director
> Ankha wrote:
>
> > TwoRazorReign wrote:
> > Wake has officially been referred to as a "keyword." See below excerpt from the anthology set announcement.
> >
> Sure, but it has no meaning rule-wise. I could have called it a "special term". We don't need currently a grammar of all VTES words ("Is 'bleed' a keyword?", "What is the nature of 'during' in 'during X do Y'?")
>
I am going to put my editor hat on here for a second. Please understand what I am about to say is not meant as negative criticism from one stranger on the internet to another, but rather a professional piece of advice I would give a client: If you call something a keyword, then you are ascribing special meaning to it that should not exist in VTES, whether intentional or not. Further, calling something a keyword (wake), then saying that something else is not a keyword (limited), doubles the problem, because now you are introducing two special meanings that should not exist in VTES ("keyword" and "not a keyword"). Therefore I would have suggested not using the term "keyword" to describe "wake" at all. I would call both wake and limited "special terms," and never call them anything else, because, as you said above, this is what they actually are in VTES. This would have made the language used in the announcement where "wake" was introduced consistent with how things appear in the rulebook (there is a glossary with the heading "Special Terms," with definitions that clarify the functions of those special terms). Thus, by using "special term" in the announcement instead of "keyword," the announcement would have been consistent with how people understand terms in VTES. I hope this makes sense...